Earlier studies have shown that unilateral or bilateral cataract was present in 25-30 percent of the progeny of weaning of Wistar rats fed a vegetable protein based diet throughout gestation and lactation. Supplementation of the diet with either L-tryptophan or alpha-tocopherol completely prevented the abnormality, suggesting an interrelationship between these two nutrients. We propose to extend these studies using individual amino acids rather than protein so as to define the tryptophan requirement during gestation in terms of dietary tocopherol levels. We will also quantitate the lens proteins by applying disc gel electrophoresis to water extracts.